Program aims to improve indigent defense system

Published 2:43 pm, Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Montgomery County residents have begun to receive assistance from a new program aimed at helping the mentally ill who are swept into the criminal justice system.

The program, which started in February with a $487,000 grant through the Texas Department of Indigent Defense, is designed to help defendants with both legal and personal needs throughout the legal process.

In its first month, the Managed Assigned Counseling Mental Health program opened 36 cases for people arrested who are suspected of having a mental illness.

Montgomery County 284th state District Court Judge Cara Wood said there are just a handful of civil defense programs in the state that address the mentally ill population. The Montgomery County program is the first to use the managed assigned counsel model.

"The purpose of the grant is to help improve indigent defense. The Department of Indigent Defense was not interest in a cookie cutter approach, they want pioneers. We are glad to be the ones piloting the managed assigned counsel program with a twist of mental illness," Wood said.

Since 2007, Montgomery County officials have been interested in helping to give those in the county with mental illness an alternative form of treatment to incarceration. The first attempt was the jail diversion task force program through Tri-County Services. That program allowed defendants to be released from jail under certain conditions and supervision, Wood said.

Officials saw that there was still a need for specialized legal assistance for that segment of the population, Wood said. She said the idea to create the program came from a conference several years ago. She then brought the information and presented a workshop on how a managed assigned counsel program might benefit the county.

"We were seeing certain issues over and over, and dealing with those with mental illnesses was one of the issues that kept appearing. So we tried to see how we can fashion a different way to deliver attorney services," Wood said.

The county has hired civil defense attorney Sara Forlano to run the new program.

Forlano, who has 15 years of civil defense experience, said she sought the position because she thought it was good way to help prevent some people with mental illnesses from slipping through the cracks.

When a person is arrested, his name is checked on a statewide database that identifies if the person has a history of mental illness such as bipolar disorder, major depression or schizophrenia.

If the person qualifies for a court appointed attorney, Forlano's office is contacted and she assigns the defendant an attorney from a rotating list of trained lawyers, she said.

There are about 14 attorneys on the wheel. Each attorney must receive training on dealing with clients with mental illnesses, and the indigent defense software known as defenderDATA, Forlano said.

Forlano said her office will assist attorneys throughout the defense process and up to six months after their case ends in finding resources that are needed to help the defendant, which could include housing, medicine, insurance, and Medicaid and veteran benefits. Sometimes, she said, it is as simple as reaching out to their families.

"We try to stabilize their lives. We do believe that if their lives are stable they will be less likely to reoffend, they won't come back into the system and the recidivism rate will be reduced," Forlano said. "We had a couple homeless people come to our office and we were able to connect them with the (Montgomery County) Homeless Coalition. It's an ongoing process. Some may take a long time to help and sometimes it might only take a few weeks."

Officials hope the new program can also lead to cost saving by getting the defendants the proper treatment.

Wood said it cost about $55,000 a year to house a mentally ill person in jail, about $30,000 more than the average person. Williamson and Bexar counties have saved millions each year through similar programs she said.

"Mentally ill inmates are more expensive to house because they have medicines they have to take and they may required additional help. It's hard to put a number on it, but we anticipate a substantial savings," Wood said.